ZCash Passes $600 For First Time

ZCash, a decentralized and open-source cryptocurrency, spiked to new highs on Tuesday, passing the $600 mark for the first time in its brief history.

ZCash first passed the $600 threshold at around 3 a.m. EST Tuesday after hovering just below the mark for the better part of Monday. It quickly spiked to as high as $635.55 before falling back to as low as $560.40. As of 2p.m. EST, the cryptocurrency has once again broken the $600 barrier.

ZCash was first introduced in October 2016 as an alternative to Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency was designed to provide more privacy to its users by shielding details of transactions, including the amount of currency spent, from others.

The cryptocurrency utilizes the Zerocoin protocol, first developed by professors and students at Johns Hopkins University to achieve anonymity for users. The protocol allows users to opt for additional privacy features that can conceal the sender, recipient and amount being sent on each transaction.

ZCash is just the latest cryptocurrency to see a major spike in value as the rising price of Bitcoin has acted as the tide that lifts all boats. Just three months ago, ZCash was hovering around the $200 mark and slowly climbing. The cryptocurrency has spiked since Dec. 10, when it sat at $290, and has more than doubled in just over one week.

It isn’t the only coin to enjoy a massive bump in value in recent weeks. Ethereum has climbed as high as $884.68 as of Tuesday. It was valued at $446.69 on Dec. 9. Litecoin , a fork of Bitcoin Core that is thought to be quicker and more efficient to use than Bitcoin, jumped from $151.32 on Dec. 9 to as high as $363.78.

Driving the skyrocketing values of cryptocurrency has been the mad dash to invest in Bitcoin. By far the most popular of the cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has experienced massive price spikes over the course of 2017. It jumped as high as $19,586.57 this week. At the start of the year, the cryptocurrency was valued at less than $1,000.